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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.

Comment

The other thing about Melo trading for AI was a terrible idea. Allen Iverson and Melo are way to ball dominate they are actually pretty close to the same player especially considering AI was on the downside of his career. If that is what Donnie means by not chasing a name player than I get it but we dont have the name player to build around. All 3 of those guys were dampener by poor management same with LBJ in Cleveland.

If Cleveland hadn't ****ed up the draft so many times and got LBJ a great compliment around him he would still be a CAV IMO.

Comment

OK, so you seem to be suggesting that a potential deal is there for the taking and yet the Pacers are refusing it. A deal that you believe will make the Pacers better and yet the Pacers are just refusing to make the deal.

let me just ask are you saying the Pacers know of a deal or know they could make a deal for those two players, a deal that will make the team better and yet they refuse to do so? Why would they refuse to do so.

See this goes to motivation. (in this scenerio it doesn't matter whether the deal is good or bad - you are suggesting it seems to me that they are refusing to make a deal in which they believe will make the pacers better.

You are questioning the motive of the pacers franchise and I guess that is what has me a little worked up.

I can understand disagreeing with certain trades and draft picks, but to question the motivation seems over-the-top to me.

I'm suggesting it is a flawed philosophy to simply stand pat with the team's core talent when they can never be good enough to beat MIA/OKC.

I'm suggesting if they aggressively pursued talent they COULD bring in someone else with a trade. It would take a lot of effort though. Deals don't just fall on your doorstep.

Comment

As many as the Pacers? those guys by themself with a bunch of scrubs have a better chance to get to the finals than this current Pacers team.

Seriously?

Last year Carmelo had teammates that were anything but scrubs and did not finish ahead of the Pacers... DWill was playing with scrubs and finished FAR below the Pacers... And Dwight got injured so we can't say anything for sure there, but very well could have finished below the Pacers...

So, why would any of you think that the Pacers would do any better then they have to this point in FA is beyond me. I mean, if you look at that list, they are the only players that possibly can get your team over the hump and 29 other teams didn't get any of those players. A Carl Landry, Brandon Bass or Nic Batum would be nice to have but I don't believe any one of them on this team is going to win you a championship or even an extra game for that matter.

Building any team is a process and more so for a non fa magnet, but with the right moves a championship can be had and I don't see any bad moves yet!

Garbage players get 1st round picks, (WTF)! All of the NBA must hate the Pacers! LOL

Comment

You aren't owning a sports team to make money if you cant afford it sell the team I would rather see the franchise win than just be here competing for 5th in the east every year and being 1 and done in the playoffs.

easy to make that call when it's NOT YOURS..
I tell you what, when the day comes where you can afford an nba franchise, then you can make those decisions..
It sure is easy to spend other people's money and make decisions with other peoples business.. lol

"They want to be famous. We want to be champions. They want to be rappers and backup dancers. We want to play football." - T.J. Ward, Denver Broncos

Comment

1st post of the post-draft/FA period (was on vacation). My overall feel - already represented often I think - not bad on a relatively superficial level, but highly dependent on how all new acquisitions produce in real season conditions.

The bottom line is there's potential, but it has to be realized. I think all of Green, Agustin, Mahinmi still have a lot of upside. That said, I nervous as to whether they can actually live up to it. DJ I thought played well for us last season. Green would seem to have the POTENTIAL to be an offensive upgrade - something our 2nd unit badly needs - but he has to be able to at least replicate his "comeback" season with NJ, if not improve upon it to live up to Pacer (fan?) expectations. But it could happen.

Agustin has played quite well and quite poorly at different periods in his career. Can he author a consistent return to the good periods? Is he definitely the distributor many seem to think? I guess more so than DC, but I don't like his career 3 pt %, and he's not been afraid to jack 'em I don't think.

At any rate, I like the potential for fit and performance uptick for the trade/FA guys, but they've got to back it up. Whether they can do that remains to be seen. Rooks I think are also all about the potential, but they are more likely on a longer clock than the new vets. I will say I feel better about the Plumlee pick after reading more and seeing his summer league performance.

I do understand those expressing the POV that the new guys (particularly trade/FAs) either don't noticeably improve us and/or aren't likely to put us in championship contention. Of course, if they somehow realize some of that potential, we might be closer than some of us think. That may be best case, and as they say in Spanish "entre dicho y hecho hay gran trecho", meaning something like between saying (promise) and doing there's a huge gap. These guys have certain promise, but only if the manage to fulfill it.

Comment

Workaholic????????? I would love those hours and be considered a workaholic

For a 71 year old especially, I think 9 hour days IS most definitely workaholic characteristics.. Especially considering the hours he put in when he was younger..

Being away from one's home, family and other desires for 9 hours every day wears thin on a person, it don't matter if it's deskjob/easy work or hard manual labor.. it still drains a person mentally as well as physically...

Heck I work anywhere from 6 1/2 hrs to 7 1/2 hours every night 3rd shift .. come home for a couple hours at 6:30/7 am , then come back for 3 more hours from 10am to 1pm .. I definitely consider myself a workaholic.. and believe me it wears thin on me very much so.. So I can only imagine how it would be for a 70+ year old guy .. lol

Heck he should be retired and enjoying what time he has left on this earth .. Which at 71 , realistically and statistically the best he could hope for is another 25-30 years, and out of those years how many will old age have made unbearable to enjoy?
Believe me, 20 years go by pretty damn quick when you aren't paying attention .. Hell I still can't wrap my head around it being 20 years ago since I was a senior in highschool.. It only seems like yesterday in my mind.. It sucks because my mindset is close to the same as it was when I was 18/20 yrs old except with the added wisdom of my years.... I feel like a 19/20 year old stuck in a 38 year old's body with a 45 year old's hairline lmao..

It makes me feel old and sad at the same time.. lol Damn you father time ..

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"They want to be famous. We want to be champions. They want to be rappers and backup dancers. We want to play football." - T.J. Ward, Denver Broncos

Comment

For a 71 year old especially, I think 9 hour days IS most definitely workaholic characteristics.. Especially considering the hours he put in when he was younger..

Being away from one's home, family and other desires for 9 hours every day wears thin on a person, it don't matter if it's deskjob/easy work or hard manual labor.. it still drains a person mentally as well as physically...

Heck I work anywhere from 6 1/2 hrs to 7 1/2 hours every night 3rd shift .. come home for a couple hours at 6:30/7 am , then come back for 3 more hours from 10am to 1pm .. I definitely consider myself a workaholic.. and believe me it wears thin on me very much so.. So I can only imagine how it would be for a 70+ year old guy .. lol

Heck he should be retired and enjoying what time he has left on this earth .. Which at 71 , realistically and statistically the best he could hope for is another 25-30 years, and out of those years how many will old age have made unbearable to enjoy?
Believe me, 20 years go by pretty damn quick when you aren't paying attention .. Hell I still can't wrap my head around it being 20 years ago since I was a senior in highschool.. It only seems like yesterday in my mind.. It sucks because my mindset is close to the same as it was when I was 18/20 yrs old except with the added wisdom of my years.... I feel like a 19/20 year old stuck in a 38 year old's body with a 45 year old's hairline lmao..

It makes me feel old and sad at the same time.. lol Damn you father time ..

I thanked you for making me feel old as well brah . Dammit

However, Jay said 40 is the new 30

Sittin on top of the world!

Comment

Last year Carmelo had teammates that were anything but scrubs and did not finish ahead of the Pacers... DWill was playing with scrubs and finished FAR below the Pacers... And Dwight got injured so we can't say anything for sure there, but very well could have finished below the Pacers...

Melo was injured last year, Amare was injured, Lin got injured, Baron Davis had a freak injury and was not 100% all year, Dwill was injured, Brook Lopez was out of the year, etc,etc,etc, the Pacers were just lucky not to have one of their core players injured or out for the year so yeah seriously...

@WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!